The number of Afghan soldiers killed fighting the Taliban has risen a fifth this year as Nato forces withdraw and local troops face the brunt of the continuing war.

The Afghan defence ministry said around 1,050 Afghan troops died in 2012 as the army reached its full size and conducted an increasing number of its own missions.

Police deaths have also risen.

The heavy casualties come amid uncertainty over how the hastily-built Afghan forces will perform once they lose the Nato equipment and firepower they have relied on for a decade.

The international coalition has said it will end combat missions by the end of 2014. Without a peace deal with the Taliban, which many view as a distant prospect, the fighting is likely to continue after a foreign withdrawal.

Gen Mohammad Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defence, said Afghan forces were now charged with 80 per cent of security missions and were particularly badly hit by roadside bombs.

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"Our forces are out there in the battlefields and combat areas more than at any other time in the past," he told the AP news agency.

An Afghan officer responsible for repatriating soldiers killed in southern Afghanistan, told The Daily Telegraph he had been working flat out all summer to fly home those killed in action.

"There were many martyrs each week," he said.

Heavy attrition rates from casualties and desertion remain the biggest weakness of the young Afghan forces. Accidents also contribute to the high casualty toll.

Meanwhile, Nato deaths have continued to fall. By Monday, 405 coalition troops had been killed in the Afghan campaign in 2012, down from 566 in 2011 and 711 in 2010, according to the icasualties monitoring website.

Britain has lost 44 killed this year, down from a peak of 108 in 2009.